


trip and fall (in love)

by perfectlyrose



Series: The Femslash Collection [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5879605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara is a kindergarten teacher who, at the end of a long day, makes a mistake. Fortunately, it was possibly the best mistake of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trip and fall (in love)

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by the lovely rosestormborn on tumblr

“Don't forget your lunch box, Daniel!” Clara called as the six year old ran out of the room as soon as he caught sight of his mum.

She sighed and dropped her head forward, hair shielding her face from view. She rubbed her temples. Little ones were exhausting. Clara had wanted to teach older kids but this had been the only opening at her local school so she'd taken it. And she loved all the little monsters in her class but days like this that seemed to drag on forever wiped her out.

She dropped her hand and caught sight of a pair of pink trainers with untied, slightly muddy  laces in front of her.

Automatically, Clara dropped to her knees and started tying the laces. “You've got to keep your shoes tied, love. Don't want you to trip and hurt yourself.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” a very amused voice answered. A very amused voice that most definitely did not belong to a child.

Clara looked up slowly and was met with twinkling whiskey colored eyes belonging to a gorgeous blonde woman her own age. Her cheeks flushed as she stood up. “I'm so sorry, it's been a long day and it's habit at this point to tie the kids’ shoes and I just assumed. And I'm rambling, who are you?” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, tilting her head as she took in the blonde stranger.

“Rose Tyler,” she said holding out a hand. “You must be Miss Oswald.”

“Clara,” she offered as she shook Rose's hand, absently noting how lovely the other woman's hand felt in hers. “You must belong to little Tony Tyler, then. He's only been here a couple of days but he's a great kid, I can tell.”

“He is,” Rose said with a fond smile. “Bit of a handful sometimes but what kid isn’t?”

Clara looked past Rose at where Tony was sitting at one of the tables, kicking his heels against the chair legs as he waited. She focused back on Rose taking a long look at her and the resemblance between her and Tony and trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

“So what can I do for you Ms. Tyler?” Clara asked, making an attempt to regain her professionalism. The woman was a parent of one of her students, off limits no matter how much she was starting to wish she wasn’t.

“Rose, please. Ms. Tyler makes me start looking for my mother,” she confided with a grimace.

Clara’s eyes zeroed in on the woman’s left hand as she lifted it to push a strand of hair behind her ear. No wedding ring. She could work with that, hopefully. Maybe.

“I just wanted to introduce myself so you knew who’d be picking up Tony most of the time. Sometimes my mum or dad will but it’s mostly me.”

“No boyfriend in the picture then?” Clara asked before slapping her hand over her mouth, cheeks coloring again. She moved her hand slightly to speak again. “That was completely inappropriate and I apologize. I think I mentioned that it’d been a long day?”

Rose’s expression was somewhere between amused and bewildered as Clara clapped her hand back over her mouth.

“You did, yeah,” she said. “And no, I’m not currently seeing anyone since you seem to be curious.”

Clara was relieved that Rose’s reply was accompanied by a smile and a quick flick of her eyes up and down her body. Maybe she hadn’t messed everything up too entirely.

“Bit curious, yes,” she admitted. “Tony’s dad not around anymore?”

Rose’s eyebrows drew together and then her whole face cleared, lighting up like a sudden sunrise. “This conversation makes so much more sense, now,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m sorry, what’s making more sense?” Now Clara was the confused one.

“I’m not Tony’s mum. He’s my little brother. Our mum got remarried a few years back and had him, was a bit of a surprise to us all,” she explained with a laugh.

Clara’s mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to figure out what to say to get her out of this situation that kept getting more awkward. _Could she make a fool of herself any further?_ she thought.

“People think I’m his mum all the time though, so don’t worry about it,” Rose commented, smile growing at Clara’s consternation.

“Alright,” Clara said, wrapping her arms around herself and swaying a bit. “I’ll definitely try not to worry about it.”

“At least you weren’t flirting with one of your student’s parents,” Rose commented with a wink before turning to take a few steps towards Tony.

“I wasn’t flirting,” she argued, following.

Rose turned around and gave her a look.

“Okay, okay, I was but you’re gorgeous and weren’t wearing a ring.”

“Well, I’m not a parent and it’s not against any rules for me to give you my number, right?” Rose asked.

“No?”

“Good.” She turned to Tony and crouched down next to him. She ruffled his hair and smiled at him and Clara’s heart melted. “Hey little monkey, do you have a piece of paper I can use. I need to write something very important down for Miss Oswald.”

The little boy dug in his bag and handed her a crumpled half piece of A4.

“Thanks, Tony,” Rose said, dropping a kiss on top of his head. “Just another minute and then we can go home. I think dad’s planning breakfast for dinner tonight while mum’s out of town and we don’t want to be late for that, do we?”

Tony shook his head, grinning from ear to ear and Rose popped back up to her feet, paper in hand. “Got a pen, Miss Oswald?”

Clara’s smile was as wide as her student’s as she handed Rose one from her desk. The blonde scribbled a quick note and her mobile number on the paper and handed it to her before turning back to make sure that Tony had all of his things.

“Say bye to your teacher,” Rose urged, nudging Tony as they neared the classroom door.

“Bye Miss Oswald,” Tony said, not turning around.

Rose on the other hand turned and gave Clara a mischievous grin. “I’ll try to keep my shoes tied for the time being,” she said, nodding at the note in Clara’s hand..

Clara shook her head, smile irrepressible. That had all turned out much better than expected.

Then she looked at the note and almost choked.

_Clara-_

_I’m only going to try to keep my shoes tied so that the next time one of us is on our knees it’s for a very different purpose._

_Rose xx_

She punched Rose’s number into her mobile and sent her a text with a picture of the note attached. It read: _Chips on Saturday?_

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Years later Rose always smile wickedly and squeezed Clara’s hand when someone would ask them how they met and Clara would roll her eyes as Rose gave her standard answer.

“Well, she fell to her knees in front of me when we first met, how was I supposed to resist that?”


End file.
